Māori and the Integrated Data Infrastructure: an assessment of the data system and suggestions to realise Māori data aspirations [Te Māori me te Integrated Data Infrastructure: he aromatawai i te pūnaha raraunga me ngā marohitanga e poipoia ai ngā wawata raraunga Māori]

Māori linked administrative data

“…Our work aligns with findings from a recent publication that highlighted the current limitations of the IDI for Māori data and Māori users (Greaves et al, 2023). In particular, the need for significant improvements to be made to, or rebuilding of, the IDI, to ensure that it becomes a safer and more effective tool for Māori self-determination (Greaves et al, 2023). By creating a new Māori infrastructure, we hope to transform the availability of research results, resources, and the existing Official Statistics System to Māori collectives.…”

“…The new Māori knowledge infrastructure within the IDI will then be made available for future research. Our work aligns with findings from a recent publication that highlighted the current limitations of the IDI for Māori data and Māori users (Greaves et al, 2023). In particular, the need for significant improvements to be made to, or rebuilding of, the IDI, to ensure that it becomes a safer and more effective tool for Māori self-determination (Greaves et al, 2023).…”

Measuring Māori Health, Wellbeing, and Disability in Aotearoa Using a Web-Based Survey Methodology

“…The advantages of this sample frame are the high coverage and the fact that it includes some demographic information but limited contact details. It was considered unfeasible to use iwi data as our framework, as these are not centralised, may contain duplicates, i.e., an individual registered with multiple iwi, and do not include people of Māori descent who are not registered with their Iwi [ 28 , 33 , 34 ].…”

“…Our original intent was to upload and data-link the survey results with the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI), a national platform of de-identified administrative data sets operated by Stats NZ [ 25 , 33 ]. However, this posed two key logistical issues.…”

“…Firstly, ethical requirements of data linkage for “future unspecified research” required participants to agree to a substantive amount of data sovereignty compliance and information, which would have created additional participant burden and potentially biased our results by negatively impacting the response rate. Secondly, there are significant backlogs in Stats NZ’s ability to upload the new data sets, which would have meant several years of delay and an inability to validate the survey sample in a timely manner [ 33 ]. Finally, several studies have identified ethical and privacy concerns, particularly amongst young people and Māori, about data misuse with secondary use of data and fear of re-identification in the IDI [ 35 , 36 ].…”